Tag Archives: Stanley Brock

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 3.24 “Ghost Rider”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This episode …. ugh.

Episode 3.24 “Ghost Rider”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on April 1st, 1987)

This episode was …. bad.  It was really bad.  I know that Highway to Heaven is a show with its own unique style and that it’s necessary to sometimes set aside cynicism and just accept the show in all of its sincere and earnest glory but I just couldn’t do it with this episode.

Birdy Belker (Didi Conn) is a ghost writer.  She writes the Roger Bolt spy novels, which are then credited to the glamorous Natasha Gudonov (Victoria Carroll).  Roger was a real spy.  He died years ago but Birdy still has a bit of a crush on him.  Birdy is also Jonathan and Mark’s latest assignment.  Jonathan decides to just wait for her outside of her apartment and introduce himself as being an angel.

“RAPE!” Birdy yells before then spraying Mark with a breath freshener that she mistook for mace.

Jonathan brings Birdy’s dead plants to life, proving that he’s an angel.  Birdy goes from being terrified to inviting two strangers into her apartment.  Birdy is single and her parents are giving a hard time about her lack of a boyfriend.  Mark suggests that Birdy buy Roger’s old car, which is set to be auctioned off.  Birdy and her father (Bobby Baum) go to the auction with Jonathan and Mark.  Uh-oh, shady Boris (Adam Gregor) wants the car as well!  However, Boris has to call his boss to see if he should bid more than $20,000.  Jonathan stares at the phone until it explodes.  Birdy wins the auction!  She has the car!

(Destroying someone’s property does not seem like proper angel behavior, to be honest.)

It turns out that the car is haunted by the ghost of Roger Bolt (Warwick Sims).  Jonathan insinuates that Roger is actually in Purgatory and helping out Birdy is his final chance to make it into Heaven.  That’s …. okay, I guess.  The problem is that Roger’s ghost doesn’t show up until 30 minutes into the episode.  A ghost is a pretty big plot point to introduce that late in the game.  Birdy is in love with Roger, up until she realizes that he’s a cad.  Still, Roger redeems himself but helping Birdy outsmart the two spies who want his old car.  Birdy becomes a celebrity, Roger goes to Heaven, and Birdy meets her new neighbor, a nerdy guy who seems perfect for her.  But then, as Mark and Jonathan are heading to their next assignment, Roger’s car starts and we hear Roger’s voice.  “Bolt, Roger Bolt.”  Okay, so did he go to Heaven or not?  Or is he still a ghost?  What’s going on!?

My honest guess is that this was meant to be a backdoor pilot, one that would have featured Birdy and Roger’s ghost getting involved in espionage on a weekly basis.  That’s really the only way that this oddly paced episode makes any sort of sense.  Tonally, it had nothing in common with any other episode of Highway to Heaven that I’ve seen.  It doesn’t work, largely because Birdy is an amazingly annoying character and Roger was a less than interesting take on the Bond stereotype.

This episode was definitely a misfire.  Luckily, the season ends next week with an episode featuring Leslie Nielsen.  That should be great!  It certainly can’t be any worse than this one.

A Pre-empted Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 3.17 “Return of the Supercycle”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

Sorry, last night’s review of CHiPs was pre-empted by my own need to get some rest after spending the previous few days dealing with the worst sinus pain ever.  (Well, maybe not ever but it was still pretty bad….)  Here’s last night’s episode of CHiPs, just a few hours late!  Regularly scheduled programming will resume soon.

Episode 3.17 “Return of the Supercycle”

(Dir by Bruce Kessler, originally aired on October 27th, 1979)

The Supercycle is back!  A thief on a supercharged motorcycle is robbing jewelry storefronts.  Baker takes the old Highway Patrol Supercycle out of storage so that he can go after the new Supercycle.  Baker suspects that the Roy Yarnell (George O’Hanlon, Jr) might be up to his old Supercycle tricks again but it turns out that Roy is innocent.  Instead, it’s his mechanic.

In other words: SUPERCYCLE SUPERCYCLE SUPERCYCLE!

Ponch spends the majority of this episode in a hospital bed.  Early on in the episode, Ponch crashes his motorcycle while chasing the new Supercycle and seriously injures himself.  Apparently, the crash was real and Estrada actually did injure himself.  Watching the episode, it’s easy to see that the show dealt with Estrada’s injuries by just giving all of Ponch’s lines to Baker.  For once, Baker is the one who bends the rules and gets to do all the cool stuff.  He even gets to romance a visiting member of the Highway Patrol, Kathy Mulligan (Anne Lockhart).  In any other episode, Ponch would have been the one doing all of that so it’s interesting to get to see Baker actually get to have a life for once.  And yes, before anyone asks, Estrada finds an excuse to remove his shirt even when he’s relaxing in a hospital bed.  No hospital gowns for Estrada!

The sad thing is that Larry Wilcox was definitely a better actor than Erik Estrada and he also looked a lot more believable on a motorcycle.  But, this episode shows that Estrada just had more screen presence.  As easy as it is to make fun of Ponch, Estrada’s over-the-top displays of vanity were often just what CHiPs needed.  Estrada may not have been a great actor but he amusing to watch.  Wilcox has a much more laid back presence.  He’s a believable cop but he’s just not as much fun to watch as Estrada.

Probably the most amusing thing about this episode is that, when Estrada (or his stuntman pretending to be Estrada) is lying on the pavement, Wilcox cannot bring himself to really act convincingly concerned or worried.  CHiPs is a bit infamous for the fact that Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada did not have a great working relationship.  That’s all I could think about as I watched Baker casually step over Ponch’s prone form on the street.

Anyway, this episode has some spectacular motorcycle jumps and some good chase footage.  There was an occasionally amusing subplot where the men of the Highway Patrol worried that Kathy was reporting their behavior to Sacramento.  (Grossman, played by the invaluable Paul Linke, made me laugh with his sudden emphasis on doing everything by the book.)  The Supercycle was cool.  Everyone should have one.

Retro Television Review: Welcome Back, Kotter 4.8 “X-Rated Education”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Saturdays, I will be reviewing Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC  from 1975 to 1979.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime.

This week, Gabe Kaplan is missing.

Episode 4.8 “X-Rated Education”

(Dir by Norman Abbott, originally aired on October 28th, 1978)

Epstein, because he’s apparently the only student who works in the audio-visual department, is setting up the projector in the classroom so that it can be used to show a sex education film.  Carvelli and Wilbur enter the room and announce that they have a pornographic film that they want to watch.  Horshack and Washington then show up and decide that they want to watch the movie as well, even though Horshack doesn’t seem to be quite sure what an adult film actually is.

(Horshack also now appears to now be about 50 years old.  The Sweathogs are aging …. fast!)

Epstein says that they can use a different projector to watch the pornographic film.  The Sweathogs and Carvelli head off to the storage closet while Julie takes the first projector to the office so that she can show the sex ed film to a bunch of parents who are not sure they want their children taking sex ed.

You can guess what happens, can’t you?  The two films get mixed up.  The Sweathogs end up watching the tame sex ed film.  Horshack becomes obsessed with the butterfly that is featured in the film.  The protesting parents watch the adult film and demand that both Julie and Woodman be fired.  Can Julie talk Epstein into explaining what happened even though it’ll mean that Epstein will be running the risk of being expelled?  Much like Horshack, Epstein appears to be 50 years old in this episode so maybe getting expelled would be good for him at this point.

This episode raises a simple question.  Is it really an episode of Welcome Back, Kotter if Kotter isn’t around to be welcomed back?  Gabe Kotter is not in this episode and his absence is neither mentioned nor explained.  (Off-screen, Gabe Kaplan was not happy with the show’s direction and refused to appear in all but a handful of season four’s episodes.)  It’s a shame because the plot of this episode does actually feel like a throw back to the type of first and second season episodes that Kaplan usually did quite well with.  Instead of Kaplan’s understanding but firm Gabe Kotter, we get Julie telling Epstein to tell the truth and negotiating with the parents.  Julie now works at the school but I’m not totally sure what her job is actually supposed to be.  Sometimes, she appears to just be Woodman’s administrative assistant.  Other times, she appears to be a guidance counselor.  Sometimes, she’s a teacher.  Julie usually gives good advice but she’s an outsider and it’s obvious that, unlike her husband, she would never consider herself to be a Sweathog.  Whereas Gabe talks to the Sweathogs, Julie often seems to be talking down to them.

This episode also suffers due to the fact that Barbarino is not present, even though the idea of the Sweathogs watching a sex education film seems like a classic Barbarino plot.  Robert Hegyes is the main Sweathog now.  He was a good actor but he was also way too old, at this point, to be playing a high school student.  Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs continues to be underused and Ron Pallilo performance as Horshack has grown more and more grating as the fourth season has progressed.

In the end, only John Sylvester White’s unhinged performance as Woodman remains a consistent source of laughs on this show.  Woodman is not quite as antagonistic towards Julie as he is towards Gabe but his constant bitterness is still a lot of fun to watch.  Maybe they should have renamed this show Welcome  Back, Woodman.

Anyway, this was another fourth season episode that fell flat because the Sweathogs and Julie all seemed like they would rather be anywhere than appearing on Welcome Back, Kotter.  Seriously …. let the Sweathogs graduate!